Susanne Mentzer News

her panoply of experiences with famous directors, conductors, and opera luminaries like Dame Joan Sutherland

Over three days of preliminary auditions on February 23-25, 2015, 90 of the best young American and Canadian opera singers will compete to reach the final round of the 44th annual George London Foundation Awards Competition.

Music for Life International Inc. presents The Scheherazade Initiative, a benefit concert of the great Scheherazade-inspired pieces by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Maurice Ravel, organized and led by Singapore-born Indian conductor George Mathew. The concert will be presented in the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall on January 26, 2015 at 8pm. Net proceeds will benefit the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, beneficiary of the concert.

More than most stagings of Mozart's LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, the new Richard Eyre production that opened the season at the Met made it hard to remember that the miserable duo who head the household were the happy couple of Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA.

The Metropolitan Opera will open its 130th season on Monday, September 22 with a new production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and directed by Richard Eyre.

To conclude the OSNY's 2013-14 Carnegie Hall season, Tritle will lead the Oratorio Society in their first performance together of Bach's choral masterpiece on Tuesday, May 20, 2014, at 8:00 PM. The vocal soloists joining the OSNY are tenor Nicholas Phan as the Evangelist, bass-baritone Kevin Deas as Jesus, and soprano Leslie Fagan, mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, tenor Matthew Plenk, and baritone Mischa Bouvier.

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera, is pleased to announce the first round of recipients of its new program: Opera Grants for Female Composers, made possible through the generosity of The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. From among the 112 eligible applicants, an independent adjudication panel selected eight composers. The recipients have each been awarded $12,500 to support the development of their compositions listed below.

Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion was written to be performed at Good Friday services at Leipzig's St. Thomas Church around 1727-29. 'The work transferred from church to concert hall by way of Felix Mendelssohn, who virtually broke the piece out of its grave,' said OSNY Music Director Kent Tritle. 'From then on, the incredible and expansive emotional appeal of Bach's writing carried the work from choral society to choral society, and today it is a concert touchstone that we cannot do without.'

The winners of the 43rd annual George London Foundation Awards Competition for young American and Canadian opera singers were announced at the conclusion of the competition's final round this evening, which took place in a front of a capacity audience at Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.

Today, February 21, 24 finalists will perform for the judges and audience, hoping to win a George London Award, an honor that has been conferred upon hundreds of the best young singers since 1971.

In the spring of 2014, Kent Tritle leads the forces of his various organizations in music ranging from that of Renaissance Spain, to the choral masterpieces of J.S. Bach, to Honegger's King David, to a program with the voice pioneer Meredith Monk and the New York premiere of a work by Jocelyn Hagen.

Over three days of preliminary auditions on February 17-19, 2014, 90 of the best young American and Canadian opera singers will compete to reach the final round of the 43rd annual George London Foundation Awards Competition.

And so, on Monday, December 23, 2013, at 8:00 PM-the eve of Christmas Eve-at Carnegie Hall, the Oratorio Society of New York will offer its 204th performance of Handel's Messiah in the grand style for which it is celebrated. Music Director Kent Tritle leads the 200-voice chorus, currently marking its 141st concert season, and a quartet of young soloists: Kathryn Lewek, soprano; Rebecca Ringle, mezzo-soprano; Nicholas Phan, tenor, and Dashon Burton, bass-baritone, who was the 2012 first-prize-winner of the OSNY's Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition.

The Oratorio Society of New York, the city's standard for grand choral performance, launches its 141st Carnegie Hall concert season with two pillars of choral grandeur: Mozart's Requiem, in the original Sussmayr edition, and Mendelssohn's rarely-performed secular cantataDie erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night), conducted by Kent Tritle, today, November 4, 2013, at 8:00 PM.

The Oratorio Society of New York will perform defining symphonic choral masterworks of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, both as part of its annual 2013-14 series at Carnegie Hall under the leadership of music director Kent Tritle, and in a guest appearance with Sir Roger Norrington and the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Tritle leads the 200-voice chorus, New York's standard for grand choral performance, in its 141st season and his ninth season as music director.

On Monday, November 11, the Metropolitan Opera Guild's 79th Annual Luncheon presents "Welcome Home, Jimmy!" to salute music directorJames Levine on his triumphant return to the Met podium. A perennial highlight of the opera season, the luncheon will bring together a host of artists who have collaborated with the preeminent conductor over the course of his long and celebrated Met tenure, as well as opera fans and an array of New York's society, business, and civic leaders. "Welcome Home, Jimmy!" will feature musical tributes by Dolora Zajick, "a mezzo in a class by herself" (New York Times); Thomas Hampson, "America's foremost baritone" (International Herald Tribune); and Grammy Award-winning bass-baritone Eric Owens, all accompanied by the Met's Director of Music Administration, Craig Rutenberg. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Guild's education programs in New York City and throughout the country.

The Oratorio Society of New York, the city's standard for grand choral performance, launches its 141st Carnegie Hall concert season with two pillars of choral grandeur: Mozart's Requiem, in the original Sussmayr edition, and Mendelssohn's rarely-performed secular cantataDie erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night), conducted by Kent Tritle, on Monday, November 4, 2013, at 8:00 PM.

The Oratorio Society of New York will perform defining symphonic choral masterworks of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, both as part of its annual 2013-14 series at Carnegie Hall under the leadership of music director Kent Tritle, and in a guest appearance with Sir Roger Norrington and the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Tritle leads the 200-voice chorus, New York's standard for grand choral performance, in its 141st season and his ninth season as music director.

The Metropolitan Opera will celebrate its longtime Music Director James Levine's 70th birthday with two full days of special programming on Met Opera Radio (Sirius XM Channel 74). The weekend-long marathon will feature 14 classic Levine performances, hand-picked by the maestro himself, beginning on Saturday, June 22 and continuing through midnight on Levine's birthday, Sunday, June 23. The first broadcast, at 6 a.m. Saturday, will be a 1991 performance of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera starring Luciano Pavarotti; the celebration will conclude at 12 a.m. on Monday, June 24 with a 1994 performance of Verdi's rarely heard Stiffelio, starring Placido Domingo in the title role. Complete details, including complete casting and original broadcast dates for all 14 performances, are below.

A new CD, The Hours Begin to Sing, with songs by American composers performed by soprano Lisa Delan, has just been released on the PentaTone Classics label (PTC 5186 459).